Leftists since at least the bad old days of the Viet Nam war have decried American misdeeds in other countries as well as or own. In a Bill O’Reilley interview with Donald Trump, O’Reilly comments that Putin is a killer. Trump’s reply is “What, do you think our country’s so innocent?” This exchange is in an interview with Bill O’Reilly that aired on 2/5/2017 on Fox.

Does that make Trump a leftist Democrat? I don’t think so. When American Democrats make such claims, it is because they are embarrassed for their country and pushing for the transparency that is required to maintain democracy. It is because they want the US to live up to its principles and values, not because they admire a corrupted form of those values. Nor because they admire those without such values.

The only country I know of that was founded on principles of liberty and justice for the individual is the United States of America. Our president just lumped the United States in with the Soviet Union, modern Russia, Castro’s Cuba, Mao’s China and many others as states where anything goes to maintain the interests of the state. Whether he did that as a matter or style or personal style is irrelevant. He just told the world that the USA no longer has a moral standard. While we have often had difficulty living up to our values and have only occasionally been able to admit that, we have always tried to recover and to get better.

This also brings into question what it means to “Make America Great Again”. Is the new, great America to be one with no moral compass? How will the religious community react to that? What about our allies and nations struggling to reach some level of democracy? What about conservatives who despair of our declining moral values? Not to mention liberals.

Is a “great America” one where there are no values beyond the immediate transaction? Did he really mean to accept extrajudicial killing in such a casual way? Did he mean to imply that improving relations with Russia requires accepting their methods of dealing with dissidents?

If the USA is no longer attempting to uphold the principles of our founding documents, then American Exceptionalism is over and we are just another big country. No nation struggling to achieve democracy has any reason to look up to our principles. They are dead.